Personal reflections and commentary on wild birds, birding, birders, birdwatching, and other natural history topics of interest

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

New Buffalo Christmas Bird Count: 29-Year History

The center of the oddly-named New Buffalo (Michigan) Christmas Bird Count (located at ) is actually much closer to the village of Three Oaks than it is to New Buffalo. But by virtue of the fact that the count center is located so far to the east of downtown New Buffalo, which sits on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, the count circle encompasses some of my old boy-hood haunts around the village of Galien. I’ll be covering some of those areas during the New Buffalo CBC this coming weekend. With that thought in mind, I was driven to prepare this historical sketch of the first 29 years of the count.

During the 29-year history of the New Buffalo CBC, some 272,504 individuals of 142 species have been tallied.

Frequency of Occurrence/Yearly RegularityTwenty-five species (18 percent) were recorded in each of the 29 years, forty-one (29 percent) in 25 or more years, sixty-six (46 percent) in 15 or more years (i.e., on more than half of all counts), forty-three (30 percent) in fewer than 10 years, and seventeen (12 percent) in just one year.

The Top Ten Species: The following species are ranked in decreasing order of abundance based on a combination of three criteria: (a) total number recorded; (b) mean count when detected, and (c) median count when detected. The values for each of these criteria are presented as percentages relative to the highest-ranking species in each category (European Starling;i.e., the median count for Northern Cardinal was 27.3 percent that of the starling). Ranks (overall and for individual critera) are in curly brackets. Each of the species listed below ranked in the top 10 in at least one of the three abundance criteria:

The 10 species enumerated above accounted for 65 percent of individuals recorded on the New Buffalo CBC. Three of the 10 most abundant species (European Starling, House Finch, House Sparrow) are introduced; collectively, these three species alone account for 26 percent of the total individuals.

29-year Summary:

The status of each species recorded during the 45-year history of the Niles CBC is summarized using the following conventions: Species Name—Number of years recorded (remarks, where appropriate): Median count (High count in Year(s)). Example: Great Blue Heron—26: 4 (15 in ‘98). Names of species recorded fewer than 10 times are italicized. Names of species recorded on more than half of the counts are boldfaced. Names of species ranked in the top 10 in terms of abundance are boldfaced and underlined. For species recorded 10 or more times, high counts that exceed the median by a factor of 10 or more are underlined. Asterisks (*) denote high counts that occurred in three or more years. Years are denoted as follows: ’70 is 1970, ’05 is 2005, etc.

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About Me

My fascination with birds dates to earliest childhood. Entries in my high school senior yearbook profess my interest in ornithology. Birds and their conservation were the focus of a 33-year career as a professional wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that took me from the westernmost Aleutian Islands to the political intrigue of Washington, D.C. In retirement, birds remain my constant obsession.